Of late we have hounded you poor readers, and ourselves poor newshounds, with stories especially of murder and rape of our women and children. Day after day, the police have been releasing reports of femicide, and just about all kinds of abuse, worst of sexual nature across land Botswana.
But then I am forced to look at how the nation of South Africa compares with us in handling the issues of gender based violence (GBV). Here, when gender activists aggressively took to social media last week and said #enoughisenough with killings and sexual abuse of women and children, and demanded the political leadership to rise and have their voices heard, many of our parliamentarians either ignored it or responded negatively. One, Thapelo Olopeng, a minister responsible for youth affairs, the most affected by GBV, was alleged to have dismissively said people should report cases of abuse to the police. Surely he could not have said that! But then the minister went further, targeted specific activists and blocked the sharing option of his posts. I just gave up on him, because I felt he could not have missed the point that much.
